


when we caught flame

by sheelia



Series: bravado [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Delinquents, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:07:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3980917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sheelia/pseuds/sheelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the depths of the night, Kageyama reconciles himself with an incontrovertible truth. There was something people loved about Hinata, everything from his inability to shut up to his lack of understanding of the word ‘no’.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when we caught flame

**Author's Note:**

> “ She’s like my name; I know there’s a time I didn’t have it, but I can’t actually feel what that was like.”  
> \- James Bradley, “Finally, We Agree”

It’s been three days since the disaster on the rooftop. He remembers Hinata sticking his goddamn tongue in his mouth, shifting comfortably in his lap to bring their bodies as close as possible. All the blood in his body rushed to his head and he was surely going to explode from either shock or embarrassment. Then, he fumbled to his feet and said curtly, that he had to go home for dinner, even though it was four in the afternoon.

Kageyama’s been avoiding Hinata since. Not that he doesn’t like Hinata, or worse still, that he’s ashamed of being friends with someone with a C average. He _does_ like Hinata to a disgusting degree that he doesn’t even want to admit to. Hinata is loud and unrelenting; he acts on impulse and jumps into things with _both_ eyes closed. He has Kageyama gripping onto the edge of his seat as if he were on a never-ending drop tower ride, and it scares Kageyama as much as it excites him. Hinata always has something new to say, some unbelievable story that Kageyama has to believe, because it _is_ Hinata, after all.

Kageyama likes Hinata. He just doesn’t understand _why_ Hinata would like him.

 

On the fourth day, Kageyama finally finds Hinata.

“There’s someone looking for you,” one of classmates tell him, pointing to the fuming boy standing at the door. Hinata lifts his head from his sleeping position on his desk and leans forward to get a good view of the door. He almost bursts out laughing because he can see metaphorical steam rushing out of Kageyama’s ears, and Kageyama looks endearing with his hands balled up in angry fists. And also because of the fact that he has a chair superglued to his  ass.

“Hinata. Shouyou,” Kageyama breathes out in a calm and collected tone that sounds a bit forced.

Hinata sniggers, admiring his handiwork, “Looking good, Kageyama.”

Kageyama’s eyebrow twitches, and he looks like he’s going to burst a vein. He reaches a hand back to shake the plastic chair, as if to demonstrate the reliability of industrial-strength superglue.

“I know you know that I’m never fully awake during first period, but really?”

“Meh,” Hinata singsongs. “You’ve been avoiding me. Had to do something about that,” Hinata gives a noncommittal shrug, and Kageyama is pissed that he’s taking it so lightly.

“You’re not the one who has to walk around with a bloody chair on your ass, are you?” Kageyama sighs in exasperation. His hands are in tighter fists now, and Hinata observes Kageyama pressing them at his side with restraint.

“What do you suggest, genius?” Hinata retorts, even though it’s totally his fault. “We take off your pants?”

Hinata knows he’s won when Kageyama just pouts.

“Hey, Kageyama. I need a favor,” Hinata mentions casually, brushing the superglued chair issue aside. He lifts his legs up to rest his heels over his desk, teetering his chair at a delicate angle so that he doesn’t fall backwards. _What a showoff_ , Kageyama thinks. “Let me crash at your place tonight?”

Kageyama hums, still with his hands crossed, as he attempts to weigh his options. There could be worse things than a chair stuck to his ass. “Yeah okay. But I can’t go home with the chair.”

Hinata claps his hands together in relief and he proceeds to help Kageyama pull off his chair. He gets one of his useless classmates to pull Kageyama’s arms while he yanks on the back of the chair. Kageyama screams, obviously. The chair comes off after a few hard jerks and it thankfully does not rip Kageyama’s pants.

“We’ll settle the stains later, dumbass,” Hinata smirks. Kageyama wants to wipe the smug off his face.

The bell rings, and Kageyama is pushed out the classroom. He’s walking back to his own classroom with the offending piece of furniture in his hands when it suddenly dawns upon him: he has to bring Hinata home.

 

Hinata traipses into his classroom as soon as the last bell of the day rings. He looks the same as usual — his backpack carelessly slung on one shoulder, his white shirt messily untucked, and school tie pulled loose. Chewing on his gum at an obnoxious volume, he nudges Kageyama’s shoulder, “Let’s go.”

Kageyama has noticed that his classmates have started talking about how he’s been hanging out with the wrong crowd ever since his week-long stint in detention. The girls in his class act like he’s sold his soul to the dark overlords of the school. None of those are true though, because Hinata is the only one that actually bothers him, and the most dangerous thing about Hinata is his thorough knowledge of school rules.

He looks up from his math worksheet with his ballpoint pen still in his hand. “Give me a minute,” he mumbles, before returning to a question on definite integrals. Hinata, who’s standing on the opposite side of the table, turns his head 90 degrees clockwise to squint at Kageyama’s chicken scrawl handwriting. He gives up trying to read it.

Hinata’s staring at the wall clock, watching the second hand slowly approach 12.

“Dude,” he groans, sounding like a needy kid.

Kageyama clicks his ballpoint pen close and replaces everything back in his pencil case. “I’m done. Let’s go,” he says as he slots the worksheets into his accordion file.

They share a similar route home up to the train crossing. Usually, Hinata has to cycle across and then some more down the hills to get home, but today he takes a right, falling into step with Kageyama. The train that passes through the area is an express train that only comes once a day at around 10 in the morning when he’s in school, so he hardly ever gets to see it. For the most part, the walk along the tracks is the same as he’s ever experienced; in the weeks leading up to summer, the field is nothing interesting. There’s just some silver grass growing in clumps and the occasional flower or two. The only thing different today was that Kageyama's by his side.

“You should probably tuck your shirt in if you want to sleep over tonight,” Kageyama suggests.

Hinata pushes his lips out in petulance and pouts, “Ugh. Fine.”

Kageyama stares at Hinata shoving the ends of his shirt down his pants in what was probably the most indecent way possible.

“You look twelve,” he tries to stifle a laugh when he sees Hinata’s transformation. No wonder he never tucks his shirt in.

Hinata rolls his eyes to the back of his head.

“You haven’t told me what the special occasion is,” Kageyama says, threading his thumbs through the loops of his bag straps. He waits expectantly, letting the near constant buzzing of insects in the background overwhelm them until—

Hinata releases a drawn-out sigh, explaining, “My mom’s a total bitch. Don’t feel like going home tonight.”

“Did you at least tell her?” Kageyama asks with concern.

“That she’s a bitch?” Hinata responds absently as he attempts to refold his sleeves. He gets the idea when Kageyama groans. “ _Oh_. Yeah, told her I was sleeping over at your place.”

That answer surprises Kageyama a little, but he doesn’t have much time to think over it as they finally reach Kageyama’s front door. All he has to do is introduce Hinata in the quickest way possible and then push him upstairs, and hopefully his parents won’t realize that he’s brought home a bad influence. It will be a miracle if they make it through dinner.

“Sorry for the intrusion,” both of them call when Kageyama opens his front door. Hinata slides in and slips off his shoes, stepping on the heel of his sneakers with the toe of his other shoe. He uses his feet to gently push the pair to the corner.

Kageyama calls for him to follow, already halfway down the hallway. Hinata pads over slowly, drinking in the sights and sounds of Kageyama’s home: Kageyama’s baby pictures and certificates framed along the corridor, the dusty piano underneath the stairs, and the faint whistling of boiling water in a kettle. It reminds him a bit of his own home.

Kageyama’s mother peeks out of the kitchen at the end of the hall. She’s holding a pot by the handles with kitchen mitts, her fringe pushed to the back of her head by a blue hair band that matches her eyes. Hinata feels warm and he sure he’s starting to sweat, because his collar is starting to feel clammy, and also because she has Kageyama’s beautiful blue eyes.

“What’s the special occasion?” She smiles fondly with no intended malice.

_Oh shit_. Kageyama waves his hand back and forth like an idiot in an attempt to bullshit out an excuse, stumbling on ‘um’s and ‘ah’s, making the entire situation a hundred times more suspicious.

“The electricity in my house is down. The repairman’s only coming in tomorrow, so Kagayama kindly offered to put me up tonight,” Hinata explains without stuttering once, eyeing Kageyama like the complete failure he is. The excuse is a bit of a stretch, since the electricity in his home was perfectly fine, and Hinata was the one who invited himself into Kageyama’s home.

It convinces Kageyama’s mother easily and she welcomes him to their home. Apparently, looking like a middle schooler makes lies more believable.

 

Dinner is an entirely different affair.

Hinata’s still in his uniform, his sweat-stained shirt still lamely tucked into his pants and his black tie still tight around his neck like a noose. And he thinks, silently sitting in Kageyama’s dining room, _fucking kill me now_. Kageyama, now in a loose navy t-shirt, glares at Hinata as a warning. Kageyama’s mother is setting the dishes in the center of the table, while Kageyama comes out of the kitchen with bowls of rice. Obviously, Hinata feels out of place. His hair is a totally different shade, he’s the shortest in the room, and it’s difficult to pretend to be somebody decent with Kageyama’s father staring at him. He asks him about his grades ( _mostly Bs, sir_ ) and asks him why that is so ( _I’m quite invested in my extracurricular activitie_ _s_ ), and then he asks him what his extracurriculars are ( _community service_ ). He paints a picture of the ideal friend Kageyama’s supposed to have, with a glowing personality and more-or-less decent grades.

Kageyama tries not to choke on his rice as he watches Hinata lie through his teeth like a pro.

They regale Hinata with Kageyama’s childhood stories, ones where Kageyama had lost his swimming trunks in the public pool and cried, and that one time when he had gone up on stage to receive an award and tripped in front of the guest-of-honor. Hinata listens intently with a vested interest, filing them in his head accordingly so that he can use these as blackmail material later.

He’s gulping down the last of his bowl of miso soup when Kageyama’s mother points at Hinata’s ear and asks, “What is that?”

His surprise is hidden behind the cover of the opaque bowl, and he realizes that she’s asking about his earring, the black one that’s as huge as a button. Kageyama’s doing the dishes in the kitchen — Hinata can tell he’s doing a shitty job since he hears the cutlery clang every twenty seconds — so he’s left to face his parents alone.

“Hearing aids…?” Hinata’s answer comes out more like a question, and then he hops out of his chair before Kageyama’s parents have enough time to respond. “I’m going to help Kageyama with the dishes!”

 

“So. That went well,” Kageyama says when they’re finally in his room. He blindly waves his hand over his wall until his fingers locate the light switch. When the room is illuminated, Hinata is not at all surprised. Kageyama’s bedroom is uncluttered and very minimalistic, something Hinata had expected after getting to know him. Unlike the dozens of posters and ripped out magazine pages on his own wall, Kageyama’s is completely bare, and Hinata doesn’t know what to feel with an empty wall staring back at him.

He shrugs off his bag at the foot of Kageyama’s study table, noting the daily planner lying open on his study table that has his day planned down to the exact hour. And Kageyama had called _him_ scary.

“I think I might actually have hearing problems now,” Hinata complains, fingers unconsciously reaching up to rub at his particularly big, black earring on his right ear. He visibly cringes thinking about it again, appalled at how bad the lie was, and how Kageyama’s parents started speaking to him at a higher volume in case he couldn’t hear.

Hinata sits himself on the floor just in front of Kageyama’s bedroom window with his knees to his chest. He twists around to pop the window open just a little, just enough for ventilation without getting too chilly. He brings up a hand to scrub over his face, sighing, then fumbles around the inside of his backpack to retrieve his half-empty box of cigarettes.

He’s pulling out a stick, his lighter balanced nicely between his other fingers, when Kageyama snarls, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Kageyama is breathing deeply through his nose, nostrils flaring, and he’s so close to losing it. He’s been keeping it all in since the super glue incident, and all the way through dinner in hell. Thinking about how he would have to explain to his parents the smell of ash in his room, he’d rather not take the chances.

“Duh,” Hinata says, lamely, waving the unlit cigarette in front of his face. “What else?”

“Must you really? My parents are going to kill me.”

“You think I’ve got a choice?” Hinata snorts, flicking his lighter a couple of times until it catches flame.

Kageyama gets down on his knees and he tries to wrestle the box of cigarettes from Hinata. “Yes,” he says firmly, with his palm around Hinata’s wrist and his other hand plucking the box from out of his grasp. “I think you do have a choice.”

He throws the entire box out of the window and slams the glass pane shut with a loud pop. It feels like being stuck in a vacuum and he feels the onset of his ears getting blocked. The air is still and stale and it’s so warm, and Hinata is staring at him in a way he isn’t able to describe in words. _You don’t understand_ , it seems like he’s saying. Kageyama feels like he’s crossed some sort of line — an unspoken rule — and he just stands there waiting for Hinata to say something.

“Imagine what your parents would say when they find that box on their front lawn,” Hinata recovers quickly, lips curving up into a devilish smirk.

Kageyama gapes in mortification and pulls Hinata downstairs by the collar.

 

Kageyama lives in quiet neighborhood. There's hardly anybody on the streets after 8 and the street lamps are spaced irregularly. He holds up his mobile phone over Hinata's head as a torchlight to illuminate the ground underneath the foliage, and watches silently as Hinata gropes around to locate the box of cigarettes.

"They were expensive," Hinata reiterates when he reaches the third patch of soil with no success.

The front door cracks open, casting a fair amount of light on them, and from inside Kageyama's mother peeks her head out and asks them what they are doing.

"We're looking for something," Kageyama explains poorly and vaguely, and his mother has probably noticed how he's been acting weird all night.

Hinata, head still stuffed into the bush, curses under his breath, "Yeah, looking for fucks to give."

When he locates the box, thankfully still closed and intact, he almost screams in delight. It's hard to see the expression on Kageyama's mother's face when the light from behind her casts her visage in a shadow, but he can tell from the approaching footsteps that she's going to be asking questions.

He quickly stuffs the box into his pant pocket and springs upright, saying, "Kageyama got so excited that he flung this deck of cards out of his open window." He pats the rectangle in his pocket for extra exemplification.

 

In the depths of the night, somewhere between 2 or 3 a.m. (he couldn’t get a good look at his bedside clock with Hinata’s huge head in the way), Kageyama reconciles himself with an incontrovertible truth. There was something people loved about Hinata, everything from his inability to shut up to his lack of understanding of the word ‘no’. Even his parents have taken a liking to him; they had come up to his room, _twice_ , the first time with a plate of sliced watermelon, and the second with an extra blanket in case Hinata got cold.

Said blanket was lying in a lump on the futon next to his bed’s legs. Refusing to sleep on the floor, Hinata had wrestled for half of Kageyama’s bed space.

“Why should I?” Kageyama had growled at him.

And Hinata, all bark and no bite, pressed his face dangerously close to Kageyama’s neck, murmuring like a secret, “Because we kissed, _dumbass_.”

He had wormed his way into Kageyama’s heart, rooting himself firmly in the nooks and crannies. Kageyama had given in — of course he had — and let him press his entire body against his own. He doesn’t know if it was on purpose or not, but Hinata has fisted a hand in his shirt, comfortably asleep on Kageyama’s left arm.

He looks over in a long, considering gaze, watching Hinata’s chest rise and fall with every little wheeze he made when he snored.

Even in his dreams he thinks of him, jumping over fences and pumping his fists into the air. He’d run after him as fast as his feet would let him, chasing him down block after block until they would reach his home. Hinata, drenched in glorious sweat, would push him down out on his front lawn, all grand and open in broad daylight, and touch him in a way that made his bones sing. He’d say his name over and over again like a prayer.

Evidently, he does so in his sleep too.

He jolts awake to find Hinata hovering over him, straddling his waist. He literally pinches himself. _Nope, this is real_. His dream self  might have been smooth and coherent, but here he was, sputtering like a fish out of water.

"Who- Wha- How?" He blabbers ungracefully, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Hinata is warm like a smouldering bonfire and his heat seeps through two layers of fabric. It's too distracting to ignore.

"Where, why. Congratulations. First grade Japanese," Hinata mocks.

It's 4.30 in the morning and they have school tomorrow, but Kageyama tells himself: Take the plunge. He's 16 and barely _living_ , but when he’s with Hinata he thrives. He grabs Hinata by his collar and pulls him into a sloppy, inexperienced kiss, but the enthusiasm makes up for it.

Hinata rolls his hips, short circuiting Kageyama’s brain. There's nothing sophisticated about it, especially when Hinata palms the front of Kageyama's pants, or when Kageyama does the same to the other’s. But it’s wonderful and new and exciting. The only discomfort was having come in his boxers, and that felt awkward more than anything.

Nuzzling into Kageyama's shirt after changing out of their soiled underwear, Hinata mentions something about sleep and promptly dozes off. Kageyama cranes his neck to check the time: 5.15 a.m. That's optimally 45 more minutes of sleep — if he manages to catch any.  

He decides he'll just wait until his alarm rings at 6.

 

“Can I stay over again tonight?” Hinata finds him at the vending machine outside the school gym during lunch break.

Kageyama stands there, two fingers over two different buttons, looking at Hinata with dark circles under his eyes. “No.”

Hinata groans loudly, hanging his head forward.

Kageyama jabs the two buttons simultaneously out of habit, and then bends down to retrieve his milk. Gently picking out the carton without getting his arm stuck in the compartment, he says to Hinata, “Just go home.”

“But I don’t want to!” Hinata complains.

“Just how bad can your mother be?” He asks, “I have to see it to believe it.”

 

“She was not like what I had imagined,” Kageyama begins as soon as he steps onto the roof. Hinata glances up at him from under his bangs, back slumped against the dark green wire fence that borders the square rooftop.

At the mere mention of his mother, Hinata uses his foot to pull his backpack towards him, then starts fishing around for his lighter.

“Yeah, no shit,” Hinata scoffs with a small deprecatory cough. His thumb flicks over the little button and he watches his lighter split and hiss to life. He pulls a thin stick out of the box with two fingers, holds it over the flame, then stuffs it into his mouth, taking a long drag.

“Your mother cares about you a lot,” Kageyama contributes.

Hinata opens his mouth wide and breathes out with a fair amount of labor, heaving as if he were sixty instead of sixteen. “Too much, if you ask me.”

Kageyama tries to push a bottle of water to him, but he pushes it away. “She’s always on my case, telling me to do this and eat that. She’s trying to make me live the life she never had.” Another long puff.

“Power,” Hinata says with the cigarette box facing up on his palm. “And control.” He flips the box over to his other hand.

Kageyama quietly contemplates the meaning of this. It takes several moments to piece bits and pieces of information together: Hinata’s impulsiveness, his choices and decisions.

“I’m sure there has to be a rule that bans smoking on school grounds,” Kageyama tries to ease into lighter conversation.

Hinata waves his hand in the air. “I’m sure there is. Haven’t been caught.”

Kageyama digs through the shit in Hinata’s bag to retrieve the school handbook, pointing to page 83. He says, “There. It says it right here.”

Hinata grabs the book and rips out the page, crushing it into a tight ball. He throws it off the roof.

“Littering is against school rules too,” Kageyama states, peering through the hexagonal tessellations in the fence, eyes following the paper ball as far as it will let him. He watches it fall downwards in a steady trajectory until it disappears from his sight.

Hinata gazes at Kageyama, who has his cheek pressed against the wire so hard that it’ll probably leave a mark, and he feels his heart stop. He feels light and heavy all at once; it feels impossible.

He clutches his chest with a hand. Probably not a heart attack, he concludes, but something worse.

 

Kageyama walks on tip-toes, trying to avoid the large puddles on the uneven dirt road as if he were navigating through a land mine. He side steps, angling his foot so that it comes into contact with as much dry land as possible. Hinata is in front of him, walking in a straight line. Half his shirt out of his pants, bag strap hanging precariously off his shoulder. He carries a haphazardly folded umbrella in his right hand, and he swings it to the momentum of his body weight.

He’s splashing into every puddle and his shoes are probably soaked through.

Something in Kageyama’s chest seizes. His eyes return to Hinata’s back, tracing and retracing the lines to commit them to his memory. Hinata is, at one moment, kind and tender, and the next, a howling wind.

“I think we’re good together,” Hinata says, out of the blue. His words interrupt a long period of comfortable silence. He turns back to look at Kageyama. “You and I.”

Kageyama returns the sentiment. “I… like you,” he stammers with great effort, almost choking on his spit. “But I don’t understand-”

“Why?” Hinata adds, smirking. “If you need some hints — here I’ll go first — you’re adorable when you’re mad.” He thinks of Kageyama’s throbbing forehead vein.

“Your hands fit nice in mine, that is, when you stop squirming enough for us to hold hands,” he continues, still staring Kageyama down with bravado. In reality, the clenched fists on his hips are used to hide his sweaty palms.

“You’re still putting up with me, even after everything I’ve done,” he throws out the finishing blow.

Kageyama gapes with his mouth open, internally processing the entire situation. He plays back Hinata’s voice once, then twice, and over and over again until he can only hear his words echo in the recesses of his mind.

Hinata is complicated, but he is a book worth reading, an adventure that demands to be explored.

“Oi, dumbass,” Hinata calls, already starting to pick up the pace. He’s still jumping into every puddle, but it doesn’t annoy Kageyama as much. He’s smiling wide and his eyes are bright. “I know you don’t hear this often, but sometimes, you don’t need to use your head so much.”

**Author's Note:**

> some thoughts:  
> \- many thanks to [meredett](http://meredett.tumblr.com/) for helping me to beta. thanks for catching all my grammar mistakes!!  
> \- this was [milkbois](http://milkbois.tumblr.com/)' delinquent hinata au again lmao  
> \- just a little something to thank all of you for reading that earlier piece of work !! u guys are so nice T^T  
> \- has anyone noticed that i'm naming these things after lorde's lyrics


End file.
